Jemimah Rodrigues Shines as India Beat Sri Lanka by 8 Wickets in T20I Opener

Team India carried their winning form from ODIs into T20Is, beating Sri Lanka by 8 wickets in the first match at Visakhapatnam. Winning the toss, India captain Harmanpreet Kaur elected to bowl first handing a debut to left-arm spinner Vaishnavi Sharma. Tight spells from Sharma (0/16), Deepti Sharma (1/20 with a maiden) and Arundhati Reddy (0/23) kept Sri Lanka's total at 121/6. Opener Vishmi Gunaratne top scored with 39 off 43 balls.

India lost Shafali Verma in the 2nd over itself for 9 but Smriti Mandhana (25 off 25) and Jemimah Rodrigues (69* off 44) added 54 runs for the 2nd wicket. The pair was separated when Mandhana was caught in the deep with 55 runs required to win in 71 balls.

Rodrigues stars as India cruise to easy win over Sri Lanka in T20I opener

Harmanpreet Kaur (15* off 16) at number 4 just had to bat around Rodrigues who smashed 10 fours in her unbeaten knock adding 55 without a dent with Harmanpreet to take India home in the 15th over.

Smriti Mandhana achieved another landmark during her knock becoming the 2nd women player in the world to score over 4000 runs in T20 internationals after New Zealand's Suzie Bates. She is also the third Indian after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to achieve the feat.

Left arm spinner Inoka Ranaweera who will soon turn 40 used her experience well and conceded only 17 runs in 3.4 overs accounting for Mandhana's wicket. Kawya Kavindi (1/20) bowled a good spell with the new ball with skipper Chamari Athapaththu (0/16) rolling her arm for a couple of overs but there were never enough runs on the board for Sri Lanka to pose any kind of threat to a strong Indian top order.

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